U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Patrick Lair/115th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

Three Christians in Mosul, Iraq, killed because of their faith

Three Christians have been killed in the space of 24 hours in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Aswat al-Iraq news agency reported Wednesday, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

Quoting the news source, the Assyrian International News Agency, says a man and his father were both shot dead Tuesday, October 7, at their workplace, while extremists forced their way into a pharmacy in another district of the city and killed a Christian assistant who worked there.

AINA said extremists killed a man and his father in September in the same city, which is located some 400 kilometers to the north of the capital and which is home to the second-largest community of Christians in Iraq after Baghdad.

Christians are persecuted because of their religion by the Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorist group and by the Shiite militias, AINA reported.

The news agency says churches and aid organizations in Europe have been pushing for European Union (EU) countries to accept Christian refugees from Iraq, and Christian communities within Iraq are divided over the issue of immigration, which has severely reduced their numbers.

The Chaldean Church has spoken out for EU countries to accept individual Iraqi Christian families in acute danger, but the church would also like to prevent one of the world's oldest Christian communities from disappearing.

TAGS: Iraq Mosul Christians killed persecution Shiite militias The Chaldean Church

[10/09/2008]

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